As mobile telecommunication becomes more widely accepted and as more complex applications are developed, the demand on network infrastructure is ever-increasing. While service providers attempt to keep up with the increased need for bandwidth and generally reliable service by installing faster and additional equipment, it appears that such service may be difficult to provide while network traffic remains unregulated. In particular, two major factors that contribute to reduced end-user experience are congested network elements and unfair use of the network by certain users.
In many networks, there are multiple routes between two communication endpoints through many different intermediate devices. Without a way to assess the congestions of different routes, however, a particular session may be routed through an over-worked or failing node, leading to an appreciable delay in data transfer. In many of these cases, sessions could have been routed through other underutilized nodes, thereby providing better transfer rates for those sessions while reducing the load on the congested nodes.
Individual users may also have an adverse effect on the quality of service delivered to other users. For instance, if a user consistently uses a high amount of data transfer, such as in the case of streaming high quality video and/or downloading large files, this detracts from the total amount of available bandwidth that may be shared among other users. In other cases, malicious users may purposefully impact the quality of service delivered to other users, utilizing various tactics to degrade or even fully deny service. In some cases, the user may even be unaware that they have a virus that is causing the degradation of services for themselves and others.